Orwell : the new life

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Title:

Author:

Taylor, D. J. (David John), 1960- author.

ISBN:

9781639364510

Personal Author:

Taylor, D. J. (David John), 1960- author.

Edition:

First Pegasus books cloth edition.

Physical Description:

597 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

General Note:

Source of cataloging data: WCP

Abstract:

An award-winning Orwellian biographer and scholar, drawing on new sources available for the first time, shows how the way we look at a writer and his canon has changed over the course of the last two decades, presenting a fresh and relevant biography seen through a post-millennial prism.

George Orwell was a prolific author, and his two masterpieces, Animal Farm, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, are regularly invoked to explain the political complexities of a world he may be said to have foreseen. Taylor draws on new sources to show how the way we look at Orwell and his canon has changed over the course of the last two decades. The result is a comprehensive re-evaluation of Orwell's career, status, and relevance to the world of today-- as well as a fresh and relevant biography seen through a post-millennial prism. -- adapted from jacket

Contents:

Orwell in Time -- Part I: A Question of Upbringing 1903-1927 -- 1. Then and Now -- 2. Family Matters -- 3. The Secret State -- Orwell's Face -- 4. The Wat'ry Glade -- 5. On the Burma Trail -- Orwell's Voice -- Part II: The Learning Curve 1927-1933 -- 6. Going Native -- 7. French Lessons -- Orwell and the Rats -- 8. A Town by the Sea -- 9. Warm Girls in a Cool Climate -- Orwell's diaries -- 10. Marking Time -- Part III: An Age Like This 1934-1936 -- 11. Clergymen's Daughters -- Orwell and the Toads -- 12. Behind the Counter -- 13. The Only One I Know -- Orwell and the Working Classes -- 14. Another Country -- 15. Love in a Cottage -- Orwell and Gissing -- Part IV: Catalonia and After 1936-1939 -- 16. Spanish Crucible -- 17. Street-fighting Man -- Orwell in Fiction -- 18. Spilling the Spanish Beans -- 19. Rushing Towards the Precipice -- Orwell's Enemies -- Part V: A Socialist at War 1939-1945 -- 20. The Melting Iceberg -- 21. Patriots and Revolutionaries -- Orwell and the Past -- 22. The Muse in Striped Trousers -- 23. Beginnings and Ends -- Orwell and the 'Nancy Boys' -- Interlude: Orwell and his World -- Part VI: The Last Man in Europe 1945-1950 -- 24. Among the Ruins -- 25. Out on a Limb -- Orwell and the Jews -- 26. Pain in Side Very Bad -- 27. Fairy Gold -- Epilogue: Survivors -- Acknowledgements - A Note on Sources -- Notes and Further Reading -- Index.

Subject Term:

Authors, English -- 20th century -- Biography.

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Library	Material Type	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Sugar Grove - Todd Library	Book	PR6029 .R8 Z796 2023	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

A fascinating exploration of George Orwell--and his body of work--by an award-winning Orwellian biographer and scholar, presenting the author anew to twenty-first-century readers.

We find ourselves in an era when the moment is ripe for a reevaluation of the life and the works of one of the twentieth century's greatest authors. This is the first twenty-first-century biography on George Orwell, with special recognition to D. J. Taylor's stature as an award-winning biographer and Orwellian.

Using new sources that are now available for the first time, we are tantalizingly at the end of the lifespan of Orwell's last few contemporaries, whose final reflections are caught in this book. The way we look at a writer and his canon has changed even over the course of the last two decades; there is a post-millennial prism through which we must now look for such a biography to be fresh and relevant. This is what Orwell: The New Life achieves.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Novelist and book critic Taylor (On 1984) delivers a sterling account of the life and works of George Orwell (1903--1950). Born Eric Blair in Motihari, India, Orwell moved with his family to Oxfordshire, England, while he was an infant. Following his schooling, he worked as a policeman in Burma before returning to England, where he began his career as a writer and adapted his pseudonym from Suffolk's River Orwell. Taylor digs into the creation of Orwell's most celebrated works, noting the acclaim that followed the 1945 publication of his Stalinism allegory, Animal Farm, despite having been rejected by multiple publishers because of the novel's criticism of the Soviet Union while the country was fighting alongside the U.K. in WWII. Orwell furthered his critique of totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he wrote while battling tuberculosis. He died from the disease at age 46, a year after the novel's publication. Taylor doesn't elide the less savory aspects of the author's character, noting that Orwell's "dislike of homosexuals follows him through his work like the clang of a medieval leper bell," and the meticulous research illuminates how Orwell's political commitments informed his fiction. This stands out in the crowded field of Orwell biographies. (May)

Booklist Review

Dickensian. Kafkaesque. Orwellian. Each of these adjectives signifies a foundational experience of the human condition and, simultaneously, the power of story to communicate said shared experience. Born Eric Blair in British India, Orwell was raised in Oxfordshire, attended English prep schools, graduated from Eton, and joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. Taylor expertly illuminates how these early influences provided Orwell with a keen interest in the power of language and the language of power. The subtitle of Taylor's authoritative account reflects newly available material but could just as accurately reflect the renewed life given to Orwell in our post-fact world. From fake news and ChatGPT, claims of stolen elections and insurrections, spy balloons and airborne toxic events, our world seems increasingly Orwellian. His novels Animal Farm and 1984 are firmly entrenched in the Western canon, and Orwell's journalism and essays are similarly revered and equally influential. Curiously, his uncanny prescience may be related to his self-mythologizing. As Taylor acknowledges, the life of Orwell is, "ultimately, a study of Orwell's personal myth, what might be called the difference between the kind of person he was and the kind of person he imagined himself to be." It is fitting, then, that a man given to perpetuating a myth became emblematic of the practice.

Library Journal Review

In 2003, Taylor's biography of George Orwell (Orwell: The Life) was published to critical acclaim. Twenty years later, he has mined newly available material on Orwell to thoroughly update that earlier work. In 2012 and 2013, Orwell's diaries and letters were published, and Taylor uses those primary documents liberally. He also taps into new material by and about some of Orwell's contemporaries. There's a detailed account of Orwell's wedding to Sonia Brownell at the University College Hospital in London on October 13, 1949; Orwell was bedridden with tuberculosis and died 100 days later. Their wedding was only briefly mentioned near the end of Taylor's previous book. In this latest biography, there is a section called "Orwell and His World," which discusses Orwell's personal characteristics, ill health, and friendships, also drawing from new material. Missing, however, from this new version is the short appendix "Orwell and His Publisher," but Taylor writes meticulous notes on his sources, which include all of the significant works written about Orwell since 2003. This book ranks as the new definitive work on Orwell. VERDICT A useful introduction for readers new to Orwell and also illuminating for those who thought they knew everything about him.--Thomas Karel

Orwell in Time	1
Part I A Question of Upbringing 1903-1927
1 Then and Now	7
2 Family Matters	20
3 The Secret State	37
Orwell's Face	56
4 The Wat'ry Glade	60
5 On the Burma Trail	81
Orwell's Voice	103
Part II The Learning Curve 1927-1933
6 Going Native	107
7 French Lessons	119
Orwell and the Rats	133
8 A Town by the Sea	137
9 Warm Girls in a Cool Climate	157
Orwell's Diaries	171
10 Marking Time	174
Part III An Age Like This 1934-1936
11 Clergymen's Daughters	189
Orwell and the Toads	201
12 Behind the Counter	204
13 The Only One I Know	220
Orwell and the Working Classes	235
14 Another Country	239
15 Love in a Cottage	254
Orwell and Gissing
Part IV Catalonia and After 1936-1939
16 Spanish Crucible	281
17 Street-fighting Man	300
Orwell in Fiction	319
18 Spilling the Spanish Beans	323
19 Rushing Towards the Precipice	344
Orwell's Enemies	360
Part V A Socialist at War 1939-1945
20 The Melting Iceberg	365
11 Patriots and Revolutionaries	383
Orwell and the Past	400
22 The Muse in Striped Trousers	404
23 Beginnings and Ends	421
Orwell and the 'Nancy Boys'	442
Interlude: Orwell and his World	445
Part VI The Last Man in Europe 1945-1950
24 Among the Ruins	457
25 Out on a Limb	478
Orwell and the Jews	495
26 Pain in Side Very Bad	499
27 Fairy Gold	515
Epilogue: Survivors	535
Acknowledgements	541
A Note on Sources	543
Notes and Further Reading	545
Index	571

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents